Day Twenty-One: My Year in Fannish Favorites

I was looking for something to post about (besides the stuff I’ve been tweeting about all day and the cookies I just burnt!) and I found this survey about ‘the year in fannishness’.

Your main fandom of the year?

I really don’t think I can answer this one because I’ve been all over the place. TV, comics, music, Shakespeare. I’ve had a lot of enthusiasms. Can I just say that I’m a fan of being enthusiastic about things and get away with that?

Your favorite film watched this year?

I saw quite a number of movies this year and truly enjoyed almost all of them (when did I get so easy to please?) Truly, though, the one I loved the most was probably Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. That one was unexpected — I liked but didn’t love the comics and probably wouldn’t have gone to the movie if my friend Johanna hadn’t encouraged it. I just found it so fun and unexpected; I told everybody I knew to go and bought the DVD and have already watched it several times. If I had to pick a movie of the year, I’d probably go with The Town, which was everything I love about crime movies that are secretly about family and feelings and all that ridiculous melodrama. But just for pure “favorite,” I liked Scott Pilgrim even more.

Your favorite book read this year?

Though I’m tempted to pick Dennis Lehane’s Moonlight Mile as my sentimental favorite, the novel that really blew me away was A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore. A really sharp and funny and heartbreaking novel about American life (college and war and terrorism and child care) in the early 2000’s. (The book was published in 2009). There are few things I love in fiction more than a strong first-person voice, and for some reason I seem to find these in male narrators more than female, but this book is narrated by a sharp interesting young woman. She also plays bass guitar, which is a total bonus.

Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?

Album would be The ’59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem (which was not new this year but new to me), but my single song is “Birthday Boy” by the Drive-By Truckers. Because this is the year that Mike Cooley decided to write and sing a sassy, poignant, rocking song from the point of view of a female sex worker? Don’t ask me to explain it but here’s the band trying to explain it. Though just hearing Cooley sing it might be the better bet.

Your favorite TV show of the year?

For a show that’s currently airing, Community. Smart and surprising and genuinely funny every week, plus I love that cast. Though if you count previously aired shows I watched this year, I’d have to go with Rome. It’s definitely the one I talked about most anyway. Kind of trashy, to be totally honest, but the costume-y kind of trash where every has British accents and pretends to be talking about smart stuff.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

I got into a lot of new bands this year, but the one I kept going back to was The Gaslight Anthem, though as far as the fandom aspect, it was maybe fifty percent the music and fifty percent the chance to listen to Brian Fallon tell ridiculous stories.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

I wasn’t unhappy with comics this year, but I was a bit unhappy with the way that basically every comic I would get interested in got cancelled within a dozen issues.

Your TV boyfriend of the year?

I had to check and see if Southland had aired this year, and it did. So yeah, I’ll take Ben McKenzie as Ben Sherman, please. And, ooh, there’s a new season starting in January. Honorable mention to James Purefoy’s version of Mark Antony, and Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries. But Ben goes to the head of the queue for being someone I’d actually want to date.

Your TV girlfriend of the year?

I think I have to go with Olivia Williams as Adele DeWitt on Dollhouse. Yes, yes, she’s an evil mastermind, but since I don’t date women I don’t feel the need to restrict myself to people I would actually go out with. I would just hope to get some of the reflected glow of her amazingness.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Either pushing up against the stage at a Lucero concert in Charlottesville (close enough to read the guitar players’ tattoos!) or dancing in my living room to the remastered Darkness on the Edge of Town. You didn’t think I’d leave Bruce out of this altogether did you?

The most missed of your old fandoms?

I think everybody, eventually, wants the comic books from the year they first started reading comics to come back. For me, that’s 2006-2007. Joss Whedon on Astonishing X-Men, Fabian Nicieza on Cable & Deadpool, Matt Fraction on The Order, everybody on 52. There’s still a ton of stuff that I love going on in comics, but those are the books I first fell in love with and I’ve had bouts of nostalgia.

The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?

Hey, that’s a really good question! I have a lot of things I’ve already started to catch up on but I don’t have in mind anything new I should try. Suggestions?

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

A few months ago I wouldn’t have been saying this, but Kenneth Branagh’s Thor movie looks badass. Southland is coming back, the Drive-By Truckers have a new CD in February, Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen are doing the big Marvel event, and Springsteen has to tour again at some point, right? Plus, I’ll be seeing a lot of my fandom friends at WisCon in May, and I’m going to try to hit DragonCon in September as well. Lots of happenings there!